China's yuan firmed slightly against the dollar on Thursday, as dollar liquidity offered by major state-owned banks was bigger than demand by bank clients for the greenback, traders said. The People's Bank of China set the midpoint rate at 6.9497 per dollar prior to the market opening, slightly weaker than the previous fix of 6.9495.
The spot market opened at 6.9547 per dollar and was changing hands at that level at midday, 13 pips firmer than the previous late session close and 0.07 percent weaker than the midpoint. In the offshore market, the yuan weakened past 6.98 per dollar level on Thursday morning, widening the gap between the onshore and offshore yuan to around 250 pips at one point.
As of midday, the offshore yuan was trading 0.27 percent away weaker than the onshore spot at 6.9735 per dollar. The Thomson Reuters/HKEX Global CNH index, which tracks the offshore yuan against a basket of currencies on a daily basis, stood at 95.61, weaker than the previous day's 96.01. The global dollar index fell to 103.03 from the previous close of 103.3.
Offshore one-year non-deliverable forwards contracts (NDFs), considered the best available proxy for forward-looking market expectations of the yuan's value, traded at 7.2955, 4.74 percent weaker than the midpoint. One-year NDFs are settled against the midpoint, not the spot rate.
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